Facebook suggests you reconnect with dead friends and your husband – new feature causes trouble

More weirdness from the world of social networking as Facebook’s new “reconnect” feature is suggesting that people get in contact with dead friends, ex-s and people they live with.

The new Reconnect Feature suggests you talk to or communicate with facebookers you haven’t contacted in a while.

Where previously it just proposed people you might know, now it’s suggesting that you connect more with the contacts you already have, using alogorithms based on how often you interact with them on Facebook.

The reconnect messages pop up in the suggestions box on the right hand side of the news feed. Of course it’s harmless until it starts suggesting you write on the wall of your ex, or worse, someone who has died. Even suggesting to married people they “reconnect” with their other halves can be pretty bad.

It’s an example of when alogorithms don’t quite work out how humans interact.

There have been complaints about the reconnect feature on Twitter ranging from: “Facebook recommended I reconnect with my dog. I resent the implication, zuck” to “ironic facebook is suggesting I “reconnect” with a friend who was murdered this year… :(“

Currently the facebook group: “FACEBOOK PLEASE DON’T TELL ME TO RECONNECT WITH PEOPLE” only has two members. It might have more if people take their facebook frustrations back into facebook and out of Twitter.

The group’s tagline? I DONT WANT TO RECONNECT.

While facebook reconnect is a nice idea in theory, it just shows that even most sophisticated systems can’t fully predict and map how human interaction works. Well, not yet anyway.

Related: Facebook forces a new design on users – again